Right-Wing Thoughts

On the bruised and bruising subject of Algeria, the diehards of the French right are emotional, vociferous and arrogant; they have branded every Premier who talked of compromise with the name of "traitor" and threatened his destruction. But while their followers shouted and threatened publicly, some top conservative leaders have privately reached quite different conclusions. Last week one of the most influential talked with a realistic candor that would have shocked his noisy partisans. Said he: "Personally I have long been convinced that the time of colonialism is dead. You can't stand in the way of people who want to manage their own affairs. In Algeria there has been enough blood, enough ruin.

"The new 'framework law' for Algeria is a joke--and a pretty grim one at that. To a people who complain of being under the thumb of three prefects from Paris, what do we do? We send them 15 more prefects. A lot of happiness we can expect from that.

"But the political situation here isn't going to change radically until some major disaster comes along. Premier Gaillard lives from day to day. He has got the Assembly off on Easter vacation. When it comes back he has only three weeks to survive until it recesses for senatorial elections in May. After that, it's only a matter of weeks until summer recess. But what difference does it make? Since the abominable 1956 elections, we've been the prisoners of division. Georges Bidault may try. But neither he nor his friends nor anybody else can make it. One day sooner or later there will be panic. I don't know what will cause it. Perhaps a disaster in North Africa, perhaps a long governmental crisis in Paris.

"At that moment there will be two choices for France. The first is De Gaulle. But the Socialists and a lot of other people don't want him. The Parliament fears him. and he fears the Parliament.

"The other choice is [right-wing ex-Premier] Antoine Pinay. The Deputies don't like him, but they fear him less than De Gaulle. Pinay would demand very broad powers indeed--presumably nearly as broad as De Gaulle himself. You'll remember what Pinay did in the case of Morocco--as soon as the National Assembly took its All Saints' Day vacation in 1955, he gave the Moroccans their independence. In one week Pinay would have a program. Its first aim would be to end the fighting in Algeria."

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